At one time, CIOs would create and work with a three year plan or even a two year plan for their businesses. Nowadays, technology is constantly bombarding us, creating disruptions to our businesses. These disruptions, depending on your business and industry, can be both positive and negative influences. The CIOs I’ve been speaking with say they need team members who can solve complex problems resulting from these constantly changing technological times that seem to shift like tectonic plates. Trying to predict when the next shift will occur and how you will respond to support your business needs while staying relevant and competitive is a growing concern.

When I ask CIOs about their challenges and how they will leverage their investments in technology, I hear things like, "How do I get my teams to solve problems without me? I hire them to think yet they come to me to solve their problems and that is not going to scale,” or “I need resources on my team to be able to think through critical problems and then come to me with ways to solve them. When someone brings me a blank slate it forces me to solve the problem and pulls my focus from long term visions and remaining competitive in the market. However, when someone brings an innovative idea to me, I can support their thinking and help discover its feasibility and long-term impact on the business. That is where my energies belong and how I need my team to be able to engage to support my role.”

So how do you get your teams to think through critical challenges and come to their own insights? To answer that question, stay tuned for the next neuroscience-based post from our Program Director and Master Facilitator, Paul McGinniss.

Laurie Carey Consulting LLC

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Understanding how the brain functions is critical in understanding how to communicate across audiences and situations. Research shows emotions such as stress and anxiety activate the same circuitry as physical pain. This has significant implications on how we interact (or react) with others in situations where emotions are elevated. Understanding more about the brain allows us to facilitate one-on-one and one-to-many interactions to create positive and empowering outcomes. Brain-based coaching focuses on understanding the nature of "threat" and "reward" and how this impacts the brain in day-to-day interactions in the classroom, the workroom or the boardroom.